


Elevator Chats

by Zams_Scribbles



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Darth Vader Lives, Darth Vader Redemption, Gen, Luke Skywalker Needs A Hug, POV Luke Skywalker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:33:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28087020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zams_Scribbles/pseuds/Zams_Scribbles
Summary: It's a long way up to the top of the Death Star. Long enough to talk things over. Maybe change your Destiny
Relationships: Luke Skywalker & Darth Vader, Padmé Amidala/Darth Vader
Comments: 25
Kudos: 184





	Elevator Chats

As the floors ticked by in silence, Luke Skywalker stared down at his bound hands. Each passing level knitted his eyebrows closer together. Regret was catching in his throat. His eyes flicked to the wall panel. He still had time. Eighty-seven floors yet. Eighty-seven more chances and he was wasting them. Eighty-six, eighty-five, eighty-four, eighty-thr---

“Father.”

The towering figure next to him shifted, but continued staring ahead, refusing to acknowledge Luke. 

“Father, please,” Luke repeated, desperation coloring the edge of his voice.

-Eighty, seventy-nine, seventy-eight...-

The plea softened Darth Vader’s rigid stance. With a slight variation in his respiratory cycle that Luke interpreted as a sigh, he turned to look down at his son.

The younger Skywalker gazed up in return.

As a boy, Luke had spent many a lonely sunset vigil on the family farm, looking to the horizon, hoping for his father to come home from the stars. Not until Aunt Beru finally called him in for the night would he abandon his post. Even then, as he got older and therefore bolder, he would sneak out of the compound and watch the triad of Tatooine moons for any sign of his father’s return. He understood the impossibility of his hope--Tatooine was not a place to foster innocence. It was a harsh place and Uncle Owen had been the same with his words. Luke had known of his father’s death since he was old enough to understand it. Despite this, another part of him had never believed it. 

This was the moment Luke had dreamed of as a boy, the moment he had played out in his mind a thousand ways. Not one of them matched the events of the past four years, but now he had the chance. He could convince his father to stay with him, to come home.

He was in the mouth of the Krayt Dragon. Either he reached his father now, or Luke would face the Emperor alone. He inhaled sharply.

“It’s not too late. You can still come with me.” The words had little effect on Vader, who turned his gaze back to the lift doors.

“I have made my choice, as have you. The matter is closed, you are being foolish if you think that-” Vader began, suddenly preoccupied by the endless scroll of buttons on the elevator wall. Luke shook his head. 

“You want the Emperor dead just as much as the Rebellion does,” Luke insisted, “ if you just came with us, then we could-”

“Your rebellion seeks to restore the Republic,” Vader spat out, “They fail to understand the corruption that grows in such an idle state, the galaxy fell to war and chaos due to the lethargic masses of politicians that cared for nothing but-”

“The galaxy is still at war! The Empire never brought order, it keeps the galaxy enslaved with fear and it will never-”

“Enough!” Vader stepped away from Luke towards the walls of the lift, respirator echoing loudly in the enclosed space. The elevator was small enough as it was, and the rising emotions made it suffocating. “I have little interest in politics.” 

Politics! Free will isn’t the subject of political debate! 

-Forty-seven, forty-six…- 

Luke bit back his distaste at the comment. While future Life Days might be uncomfortable, to say the least, Luke wasn’t risking everything to fight his father over their vastly conflicting political views.

But he didn’t know what to say. He had so many questions for his father. Most of them would get any other being in the galaxy killed, however, Luke imagined that he had little time left to live anyway. And, the same part of him that had always known his father was still alive believed that, maybe, in another life, Vader would have truly cared for him. 

-Thirty-nine, thirty-eight, thirty-seven…-

If Luke was going to die for trying to save his father from darkness, then he wanted to know the truth. He was tired of secrets, half-truths, and certain points of view. 

“Obi-wan told me how you betrayed the Jedi.” Luke said suddenly. The temperature in the lift dropped at the mention of the name. Vader hissed;  
“What did you say?”

Ah, Luke thought, let's rephrase that. At this rate, he wouldn’t even live to meet the Emperor. He sought out some less antagonizing words with which to ask his question.  
“I meant,” Luke began, more carefully this time, “Why did you join the Emperor?” 

With all the poise and confidence of a man who has had two and a half decades to find a reasonable answer to that question and convince himself fully of its validity, Vader said; “The Jedi Order betrayed me and I responded accordingly.”

“They betrayed you.” Luke repeated. Vader did not respond. Nor did he respond to Luke’s further prompting on the topic. 

-thirty-two, thirty-one…-

That was that then.

The ride continued in silence for a while, the cycles of his father’s respirator steadily marking the passage of time. Luke steeled himself for the confrontation to come. The Empire wouldn’t see the rebel assault coming; soon Han and his team would have the shield down, Lando would lead the fleet into battle against the unfinished Death Star, and Luke would be there to watch his friends succeed.

He would be there to watch as the Empire fell. As the doomed station crumbled, taking Luke with it, the young Jedi would regret much, but mostly, he would regret that he wouldn’t be there to celebrate one final victory with the family he had found.

-twenty-four, twenty-three, twenty-two…-

If that was his destiny, as Vader had said, then Luke would face it with courage, like a Jedi.

-nineteen, eighteen, seventeen…-

He looked up at his father again, wishing that he had more time; wishing that he knew more about his family, that Ben had told him the truth sooner, that his father would just speak to him.

But that was up to Vader now.

-sixteen, fifteen, fourteen…-

Vader sighed again. “You wish to know about your family? Where you come from?” 

-twelve, eleven, ten…-

Luke blinked, caught by surprise with his focus still off in the future. He forced himself back to the present.

-nine, eight, seven, six...-

“Yes.” Luke answered simply, that was all he had ever wished for.

-five, four, three…-

The elevator stopped and the doors opened to an undecorated maintenance hallway.

Vader, taking his hand from a button on the control panel, said: 

“Yes, you deserve at least that.” 

Luke wavered from the disorientation that comes with sudden relief. His father wasn't going to hand him over the Emperor. Not just yet. 

A heavy hand steadied him, and for the first time since they had left Endor, Vader met his gaze. Luke could only see his own image reflected in the mirrored lenses of his father’s mask, while Vader took in the appearance of his son.

“You have grown much these past years,” he said. 

Luke couldn’t deny that. He was no longer the boy that he had been when he left Tatooine. Nor could he deny the mutinous feeling of pride his father’s comment had sparked within him. The lift door impatiently began to close and Vader moved to block it. 

“We do not have much time. The Emperor is expecting you,” he said.  
Luke nodded and stepped out of the elevator, his father falling into step beside him. They began walking down the deserted hall. 

“What has Obi-wan told you about your past?” Vader asked, his voice full of scorn. Luke responded truthfully.  
“Not much,” Luke said, “only that you had been a Jedi.”

“That is all?” Vader snarled. Luke automatically jumped to Obi-wan’s defense.

“What was he supposed to say? That you’d killed billions?” Luke said, far too sharply. Vader paused mid-step and Luke suddenly recalled whom he was speaking. Anyone else would be dead, he thought, anyone else would be dead. His father silently raised a pointed finger at him and Luke felt a thousand threats rush through the Force.

Plastoid armor clattered in the distance and the heavy footfalls of a stormtrooper unit approached. As the squad came into view, the Sith Lord planted a gauntleted hand on Luke’s shoulder and roughly marched his son further down the hallway, out of earshot from the interfering troopers.  
As the young Jedi heard the footsteps fade, he watched Vader storm several feet away from him. 

“Is that truly all he had to say? About your past?” he hissed, glancing over his shoulder.

“I’m not asking Obi-wan, I’m asking you. I just want to know if-” Words caught in Luke’s throat.

“Know what?”

If you care about me, Luke had meant to say, but couldn’t.

“I just want to know about you,” Luke said finally, “I want the truth.” While Luke knew he could not take his father’s version of events as the truth, at least it would provide him with just a little more understanding. Just a little bit more of the story. Luke was willing to die for at least that.  
Vader was still looking over his shoulder, facing away from Luke. He was silent a moment, considering an answer.  
“My past is of no concern to you. It is of little consequence to your own story.”

Luke could feel the miniscule cracks he had made in his father’s emotional shield beginning to wall themselves off once more.  
No, no not yet, he thought. What would make him care, what would make him talk. 

“What about other Skywalkers? Do you know of any?” Luke said suddenly. Kriff, no! Don’t think about Leia! Not now! Vader paused at the odd wording, finally turning.

“No. I do not,” he said sternly, digging into Luke, “Should I?” Luke cringed as an overwhelming presence began tapping at the Force Bond between them. Vader was searching his thoughts.   
“No, Father, I didn’t mean that-” Luke grasped for to place something between his sister and Vader, anything. “I-I, I meant my Mother!”

Vader retreated from Luke’s thoughts as though they were electrified. The shield had cracked again. Deeply. For a moment, Luke could almost picture a face. A beautiful woman, with flowers in her flowing hair. She looked sad. Beautiful, but sad.

“Your Mother. Of course. You wish to know about your Mother.” Vader suddenly seemed off-balance. For what seemed like the first time, Luke had struck a blow against him. The Jedi swallowed all his fear, his fear that he may not like what he found, and continued down the path.

“Who was she?” The boy asked. Vader gave no response. “Tell me. Please.” Several cycles of the respirator passed before he spoke, pacing as he did, hands locked tightly onto his belt.

“Your mother was Senator Padmé Amidala-Naberrie of Naboo. We had met as children. From the moment I met her, I-...” The words faded into the cycle of the respirator, “attachment is forbidden for a Jedi, yet, we courted in secret.” He stopped, “And it destroyed us.”

Now Luke was off balance, on one hand, relieved that his mother was not also a servant of evil, yet dizzied that his own mother had been the Mother of the Rebellion.   
“What happened to her?” Luke had heard the rumors of course, but….

One look from Vader confirmed every single one. Vader’s helmet fell.

“This is all there is.” The Sith murmured. Luke strode the distance between him and his father, the hum of the boy’s binders was all that separated them. He had one more question he needed answered.

“Why did you join the Empire?”

His father’s head raised, his gaze reaching only the wall.

“I had been tormented by visions of your mother, dying in childbirth. The Emperor offered me the power to save her. I took it. She died nonetheless.” Vader turned to the boy. “For years, I had assumed you had died as well, yet here you are, my son.”

Perhaps unconsciously, Vader’s hand had raised to Luke’s face. Luke pressed his cheek against Vader’s palm, closing his eyes against the storm of grief raging inside. Alone in the hurricane, the moment continued. Vader could feel the warmth of his son’s face against his hand. Luke could feel the unforgiving steel gently caress him.

When Luke looked up, there were tears in his eyes.

“I will not fight you, father.” His voice was not his own. It was that of a lonely child, waiting for his father to come home. Vader would not pull his gaze away from his son.

“No,” Vader said, his voice fading to a whisper, “No, I cannot hurt you.” 

“Father?” Disbelieving hope lept in Luke’s heart.

“I will not hurt you, my son. No more.” Vader was stronger now, more assertive. He stepped away, with a gesture, Luke’s binders fell to the floor. When he turned back, Luke’s saber was in his hands. He was offering it back. Luke’s eyes widened, tears threatening once more, a sob turned into a small laugh. “You will need this, if you are to defeat The Emperor.” Vader said. Luke’s hand wrapped solemnly around the hilt, cradling it a moment. Then Luke leapt into his father’s arms.

“Thank you, Father.” He said. Vader let out a cry of shock, but recovered, returning the embrace.

“My Son.”

Father and son returned to the lift. As they waited for the elevator to make its long journey up through the station’s core, Luke contemplated his own journey. Suddenly, a memory came back to him. He looked up at his father.

“There was one other thing he told me about you.”

“Who?”

“Obi-wan. He said that you were a good friend.” Vader stood in shock, before nodding slightly. After that, the pair said nothing. They said nothing as the lift doors opened to reveal an impatient Emperor awaiting them on his throne. They said nothing as Vader ignited his lightsaber and silently moved to confront his former master. Nothing but a quick nod was exchanged as Luke ignited his own saber and charged. They said nothing as they deflected blow after blow of blinding lightning. They said nothing when Vader finally landed a killing strike. They said nothing as they raced through the crumbling station, seeking a vessel to escape in. The silence wasn’t broken until the last embers of the Second Death Star had faded. As their stolen Imperial shuttle came into orbit around Endor, Anakin Skywalker joined his son in the cockpit.

“Once we land, I shall surrender immediately to your rebel forces, no one shall be harmed.” 

“Thank you, Father,” Luke said, turning in the pilots seat, “I’m sure I’ll be able to sort it out in no time”

“Luke, I neither ask for nor expect clemency.” Anakin responded. Luke turned back to the controls.

“I know, Father, but any Imperial who surrenders to us is offered a second chance.” He activated the com, preparing to let his friends know he was arriving in a stolen ship and with company.

“I do not believe that applies to me.” Anakin sat in the co-pilot's chair, flipping switches to ready the ship for atmospheric pressure.

“Technically, when Mon Mothma signed the bill, she said the Emperor himself could surrender and we might still make him an Alliance General one day.” Luke admitted, busying himself with landing preparations. His father cast him a glance from underneath the mask.

“I believe most beings would call that an exaggeration.” He said. Luke laughed.

“Well, I’m gonna hold her to it, the only problem we might face is from my s-...General Organa.” He began..

“Your sister.” His father finished. Luke looked down and sighed.

“Yes. How long have you known?” He asked.

“You do not hide your intentions well, young one. You still have much to learn” He paused, “As do I.”

As they entered the atmosphere, Luke was worlds and years away. A little boy on Tatooine had seen a shadow cross the twin suns. Finally, finally, his father was home.

**Author's Note:**

> I would like you to know I got so into character while writing this that I cried when Luke did.


End file.
